Like many women designers, Meryll Rogge has a firm handle on what her customers want from her, which, in a nutshell, is her cheerfully pragmatic brand of quirkiness. Today she was at the Belgian ambassador’s residence in Paris, celebrating being able to get closer to her loyal followers with the launch of her e-commerce. “We won the ANDAM Prize last year, which was a fantastic moment,” Rogge said, while chatting about the exhibition of her pieces in the space. “Our pitch to them was to invest the money in setting up our e-commerce channel, because we only had wholesale.”
Here is Rogge’s recipe for success: bloomers, voluminous chinos and shirts with doubled-up collars and cuffs, flower prints, and hefty oversized bombers. Flavored with a slightly surreal Belgian-ness which is well-caught in the lens of Julie Greve’s cool portrait photography, these are the items, the designer says, that customers keep asking her for again and again. “Our easygoing chinos work so well that we’ve cleared 2,000 units so far, which is a lot for a small brand. And people keep asking for them, ever since I showed them in 2024.”
Six years deep into her independent label, Rogge’s a busy person. She recently moved to Milan from Ghent to take up the creative directorship of Marni, while managing her own brand in Belgium mostly long-distance with her mainly female team, who also work remotely. No matter how tricky that sounds, particularly to corporate types who insist on presenteeism, this is the way professional women in fashion roll when they have self-determination. In these pictures, you can just read the joy Rogge and her team get out of doing something so characterfully offbeat. Several pieces are ready to buy now.
Rogge was wearing an army green pair of the chinos (they have a high elasticated waist and an exaggerated volume) with one of her blue-and-white shirts with double turn-back sleeves today: “Shirting in general for us has been much appreciated. I can’t explain why, but I have to say that myself included, I wear a lot of them.”
Self-wearing as part of the design process is obviously key to the solid demand Rogge has built up—plus the fact that there’s a lot of playfulness as well as pragmatism going on here. Who ever could’ve predicted that there’d be a demand for bloomers in 2026, or that the same people who are sporting them would also be interested in sticking their noses into vintage art books? Rogge’s web shop says they do (or they might), because she’s also collaborating with her favorite bookshop, Saint Martin in Brussels. This hallowed space is in the same building that was once Martin Margiela’s first store (its name is an homage to him). Her book selection is available on her website, “maybe so that people can find out a little bit more about what I like,” she said, smiling. That’s the attraction of an indie brand, built by a real person following her own instincts. No wonder she’s picking up a bit of a cult following.
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